My brother got himself a Harman/Kardon soundbar + sub of some sort. It sounds remarkably well for what it is. I'm used to my (quite large) audio system and obviously you can't compare the two, but for movies the soundbar solution isn't bad at all! Just go to an audio store and ask to try it out yourself.

On an unrelated note, one of my cats just closed my laptop and lay down on it, so I'll take that as a sign to go to sleep.

I have a Yamaha soundbar and love it. I have it wired with digital coax from the cable box and HDMI from my Blu-ray. It has an excellent sound stage, accurate placement of instruments for music and good surround for movies. For the small size it puts out very reasonable volume levels. I compared several at our local electronics store, Samsung, JBL, Boston, Polk, Klipsch, Panasonic, Sony, Harmon and Bose. For the money and sound quality I chose the Yamaha.

For me I would rank them as 1. Yamaha 2. Klipsch 3. Panasonic 4. Sony 5. JBL 6. Samsung 7. Boston 8. Harmon 9.Bose I did not care for the Vizio and the Bose are stupidly overpriced. The LG was not hooked up, but I've heard them before and they have a good sound.

If wires are the only issue. Consider a decent 3.1 setup as the quality will be significantly better than a sound bar. Surrounds obviously add to a movie experience but a nice 3.1 is still great for movies

If wires are the only issue. Consider a decent 3.1 setup as the quality will be significantly better than a sound bar. Surrounds obviously add to a movie experience but a nice 3.1 is still great for movies

Good sound bars are 3.1 with wireless sub, excellent sound bars like the Yamaha's use array speakers with tens of speakers, to not only make it 3.1 but also very great surround, by taking a step beyond virtual surround using the array to make the sound waves "collide" behind you.

Mom has a Vizio 2.1 soundbar setup and it sounds remarkably well for what it is, you get a nice bass thump in action and war movies and the bar itself does a decent job at mimicking surround sound, it's not top of the line great, but for the average movie watcher should do nicely

Good sound bars are 3.1 with wireless sub, excellent sound bars like the Yamaha's use array speakers with tens of speakers, to not only make it 3.1 but also very great surround, by taking a step beyond virtual surround using the array to make the sound waves "collide" behind you.